


A Brother Complex

by AcierGlace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcierGlace/pseuds/AcierGlace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This would be the first kidnapping that Sam actually enjoyed. He's got great company for conversation, as well as an excellent collaborator for escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brother Complex

So far, Sam was happy to say that this was the best time he'd spent being kidnapped so far. It wasn't that the accommodations were great or the treatment courteous, but the company was quite fantastic. 

“So our father being who, or really what, he is left some kind of genetic legacy on us. Unlike our Mother who couldn't stand the energy being leeched off her, it seemed like Brother and I were open channels. Instead of leeching, it worked rather like a circuit. The energy was open to all three of us so the Stone which was left in Father passed in some form to us. It's most likely why Brother was able to call my soul from the Gate with only sacrifice, knowledge and a blood seal instead of a full alchemic circle.”

Sam nodded, fascinated and slightly intrigued that energy could be passed in such a way, notably without any blood being fed to anybody.. His cellmate gave him a winsome smile and shrugged his shoulders.

“Don't feel bad if you can't wrap your head around it. Brother and I can because we've been through the Gate. It's written in our souls.” 

“It's just that it's not every day that a person meets a True Alchemist, you know?” Really, from what he'd understood, the person in front of him had been hunting creatures like that thing that grabbed him since the 1940s. Turns out alchemy really was just science, but not one that involved that much organ harvesting apparently.

“It's not every day that people are so open-minded about it.” 

“Considering the shit we've seen, it'd be stupid to have a narrow view of the world.” He paused and gave the lock one last jiggle and it sprang open. Alphonse rubbed his wrists as he brought them around and made quick work of the ankle chains by clapping and turning them to iron flakes. “Still amazing.”

“I'd offer to teach you but so far only Brother and those like us can do it.” Alphonse stared up at him as Sam rose to his full height and sighed. “I sometimes miss being seven-feet tall.”

“Not the biggest advantage really.” Sam followed Alphonse out of the cell as he clapped and reduced the bars to their base components. “It makes hiding in a crowd impossible.”

“Can't say I've ever been able to do that.” Alphonse sighed and turned to guard Sam's back as a couple chimera charged out at them. They looked rather disturbingly like what Sam had always pictured hellhounds to look like, but he'd have to ask Castiel for clarification on that because there was no way he was ever asking Dean. His demon knife still made quick work of the beasts, just like Alphonse's spear. “Brother always had to be the center of attention.”

“Always somehow ending up exactly where he was trying to avoid.” Sam agreed. The number of times The Monster of the Week got the drop on Dean because of her cup/waist/hip size deserved a completely separate total from the times his mouth pissed off the Big Bad. 

Alphonse reached the armor that their captors had incapacitated and brought it back to life with a clap. The armored figure took point, the narrow space bottling the chimera into its warpath. Sam was content to follow after the armor and pick off the small chimera that slipped under the armor's guard. 

The sound of explosions reached their ears before everything went completely silent. Alphonse sighed beside him as the reached the door to the basement and was prevented from just destroying the door in a clap.

“Alchemic block on the door.” He explained as he let Sam break out the lockpicking tools yet again. “Brother thinks it's only possible because Enochian sigils act counter-force to alchemic design. He thinks there's something about an angel's grace that makes it incompatible with the energy that comes through the Gate.”

“Like opposing forces? Instead of a reaction, it's a non-reaction?” Sam asked as he jimmied the door open. The multiple locks were slowing him down. They were just lucky that they had access on this side of the door as well. 

“Yeah. Our theory is that the Gate doesn't just separate this reality and our original reality, but that it intersects multiple realities, far beyond what we can imagine. So it would also make sense that it intersects multiple planes as well. From what you've said, angels are beings that exist on all those planes simultaneously, like the Gate. Maybe what created them and what created the Gate is exactly the same, but at an opposite level.”

“It has been too long when something like that takes so long to work out.” As much as Sam loved Dean, his brother's choices of conversation topic rarely if ever entered the philosophical. Smart-people talk was something he'd missed since Stanford. 

The door opened and Alphonse once again sent the armor out first. Sam tucked away the pick set and hurried after. 

“Let's just hope that Brother hasn't demolished the building on top of us.” Alphonse grimaced as they encountered yet another collapsed hallway. “I could transmute us out but there's no clue how deep I'd have to go.”

“I just hope Dean hasn't antagonized them into doing it themselves.” It wouldn't be the first time, nor probably the last, someone tried to drop the building on them because of Dean's mouth. 

The sound of fighting reached their ears, finally finding a clear hallway up through the basement level. The sporadic clapping was probably a sign that Alphonse's brother was here, and the loud cursing and gunfire was most likely Dean.

Alphonse readied his spear while Sam drew out his knife, the armor going out to the melee before either of them. They pulled up short when they finally saw the battlefield.

The cultists were tied up in the corner, dead chimera bits scattered around them. The large circle on the floor with the ashes and bones was probably the remains of their homunculus. In total, all the supernatural baddies were defeated.

But that hadn't stopped Dean and Alphonse's brother from duking it out regardless. Sam winced as the sword in Al's brother's hand slashed through Dean's shoulder, most likely right through the burn scar, while the Colt clipped Al's brother's face.

“Brother!” Alphonse's shout stopped the fighting, Dean and the brother locked in mortal wounding positions, the blade at Dean's throat and the Colt at the other's forehead. 

“Alphonse!”

“Sam! Are you alright?!”

“Fine, Dean.” He waved, resigned to the fact that the cavalry had more injuries than the abducted and tortured party. 

The combatants parted, circling warily before brotherly concern overpowered their unease. Dean rushed him, taking sight of Alphonse with some caution. Sam sighed and gestured to Dean's bleeding face.

“What happened?” 

“Well, I tracked you down to the warehouse district but since there's “No angels allowed” signs on almost every square inch of this place, the cavalry's parked outside. I break in to find that midget already taking names and screaming about his brother. So I step in to take out those fucking dog-things and the little bitch starts to get all pissed cause I'm “disrupting his alchemy” or some shit. Not hard to figure out he's either one of the cult baddies or what they summoned down.” Dean had placed himself between Sam and the other brothers, ignoring the attempts Sam was making to help him clean the blood off his face that kept pouring at a rather alarming rate, even knowing intellectually and personally that head wounds bleed like rivers. 

“Fuck you! That's not what happened!” Alphonse's brother had some volume for being so short. He raged at them, the gold hair and eyes obvious signs of what had initially tipped Dean towards the monster side of the incorrect solution. Alphonse's gray eyes weren't quite as alarming. 

“Ed!” Alphonse grabbed his brother's arm as he raised the sword at them, Sam's eyes quickly establishing that it wasn't in his hand, but actually part of his fucking arm. “They're friends.”

The snort didn't dull the rage, but Ed's clap vanished the sword. Sam quickly realized that it was actually a metal prosthetic, not some weird version of an angel blade. 

“What happened, Ed?” Alphonse glanced at Sam and Dean but stayed by his brother's side. 

“What happened was that I found the homunculus' grave and this fucking warehouse, spread out the circle and shit blew up in my face. I didn't fucking realize they had Enochian sigils on the goddamn floor so the homunculus doesn't go down immediately. Then the fucking cultists come out all pissed off and sic their bitch dogs on me! Then this prick shows up and fucks with my alchemy even more! If I hadn't burned the damn thing to ash with its bones, it probably would have kicked my ass.”

“Listen you little bitch, I'm one of the hunters, get it? So when some whiny runt starts screaming about doing alchemy and I'm on a hunt after a fucking alchemist, I'm gonna put two and two together.” Dean really wasn't happy. Sam could see Ed's face getting redder. 

“We're not like them.” Alphonse volunteered. “We're True Alchemists. Not from this world. Those people are manipulating what we consider alchemy by mixing in Enochian sigils. It's not true alchemy.” 

The explanation wasn't helping Dean. 

“Like the good monsters. These people hunt fake alchemists.” Sam spoke fast. “I was locked downstairs with Alphonse. They're pretty legit.”

“Oh because you say so I'm supposed to believe it.” Dean muttered. His temper was going down, but it was starting to fill with “I'm currently leaking blood” irritation. 

“You could always bring your angel friend in to verify it.” Ed muttered, wiping blood off his face with a pair of stained white gloves. It wasn't really cleaning his face so much as leaving big bloody smears across his cheeks. 

“How do you know about Cas?” Dean was working his way back towards hostile. Ed looked at him like he was his own special type of stupid. 

“That mark on your arm. I can feel the grace attached to it. Why the fuck do you think any time you got too close to my alchemy it failed? Only two things fuck with alchemy. Philosopher's Stones that amplify it and angel's grace that disrupt it.” 

“And you know Cas is outside because?” Sam asked leadingly.

“I felt him. Like a big black hole walking around and leeching at my alchemy.” Ed shoved his brother's hand away and walked back towards the homunculus remains. He crouched over the ashes and began to go through them. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean had far less tact, but Sam was too curious to reprimand him. 

“Red stones. They're fake philosopher's stones. Homonculi need to feed on them to access the Gate's power.” Ed came back with a handful of red stones that he tipped into his brother's hand. “You get first dibs, Al.”

“Great.” Al grimaced and gave Sam a fleeting look before taking close to half of the stones and placing the others aside. He clapped his hands over the small pile and they dissolved in red light. Which was promptly absorbed into Al's skin. Ed quickly did the same to the remaining pile. Al smiled wanly at Sam. “It's better than the alternative. The gate would eventually reclaim the stones, but it'd raise more creatures to go after them. This way brother and I can continue to use alchemy and the Gate loses some of what gives it power.”

“You ate those things?” 

“If by ate you mean absorbed at a metaphysical level, then yes.” Ed muttered. He glanced around them and jerked his head towards the cultists. “It'll be easier to just get them out and then burn this whole place to the ground.”

“Agreed.” Alphonse let Ed go to the prisoners, lingering by Sam and Dean. “Are you staying to help?”

“Maybe just a little longer.” Sam answered. He'd make sure they wait until the building was gone and the cultists in police hands at the least. 

Ed hustled the prisoners out of the building, Dean herding them out from behind as Alphonse lingered to walk by Sam. 

“Sorry about brother. He'd probably would have been nicer if I wasn't kidnapped first. He's a little overprotective.” Alphonse shuffled awkwardly in the doorway. 

“No, I get it. Dean's the same.” He winced as Cas and the Impala came in sight. Ed and Cas were circling each other much in the same way that Dean and Ed had earlier, but Sam was more worried because this was an Angel of the Lord about to go head to head with a short-tempered Alchemist.

“Brother!” Alphonse was immediately in the center of them, tugging Ed out of his growling.

“You are Abominations unto the Lord.” Castiel looked particularly smitey.

Sam grimaced. Yeah. He loved that phrase. 

“Fuck you, pigeon!” It seemed Ed did too.

“Pigeon?” The responding head tilt was rather reminiscent of said bird. Sam huffed a sigh. Oh God, they really were going to do this. “I am an Angel of the Lord.”

“Well from what I can see, there's more white in a black hole than on your wings.” Ed shot back, eyebrows raising on everyone else's part. Dean in particular was staring in horrified fascination. Probably because the eyes had been burned out of the last person who saw angel wings. 

“You are able to perceive my true form?” That was an angel blade in Cas' hand. Why was Sam the only sane member of Team Free Will? 

“Like you can't tell what I am all the same. I never asked to be here. We never asked to be here. Your God can suck it.” Ed squared his shoulders and was still quite a bit shorter than Cas. It was very unfair that the two most powerful people in the area were both so much smaller than they should have been. 

“Uh, guys? Building to burn before the cops arrive if it isn't too much trouble?” Sam interrupted before Cas could open his mouth to dig their hole a little deeper. They had just stopped fighting and everything. 

“Well unless you can pull an oil drum out of your ass, Sammy, I think we have the small problem of starting the fire.” Dean was mean when injured. That didn't stop Sam from hitting him anyway. 

“I'll take care of that. Brother, you just wait here.” Al stepped away and headed over to the armor that had followed them out. Careful to avoid the Enochian wards and Castiel all together, Al and the armor vanished around the side of the building. 

“You are injured.” Cas's voice distracted Sam from following after, but he just rolled his eyes as the angel's focus centered on Dean. He was out of there before Cas could finish raising his hand. He popped the Impala's trunk and grabbed their first aid kit. Carefully ignoring Dean and Cas, he headed over to Ed with the bandages as offerings. 

“Thought you'd like to clean up.” He said as Ed stared blankly at the assortment. The alchemist took them with a sigh and stripped off his outer layer. Sam tried very hard not to stare at the metal arm and fittings at his shoulder, but he'd always been too curious for his own good. “What happened?”

“Alchemy accident.” Ed said absently as he cleaned blood off his flesh arm. Sam took that as code for 'none of your damn business.' Ed was distracted from his bandaging to watch as Al and the armor carried a couple of cans through the warehouse door. 

“So you and Alphonse do this for a living?” He asked into the silence. Ed snorted.

“Literally yes.” Sam looked up in surprise as he heard Castiel answer the question in Ed's place. Judging by Dean's blood-free face and shoulder rubbing, it was safe to say he'd finished watching over the Righteous Man for now. “Just like demons, they consume souls.”

“I am nothing like a demon.” Ed snarled, eyes flashing. “I'm a little less than human because of that damn Gate but I'm still human in all the ways that matter. I've seen demons. Just like I can see the strain your grace is causing whatever schmuck you're wearing. You've got no right to lecture me about souls.”

“But he's not wrong. You absorbed those stones. It fuels your alchemy.” Sam's voice was soft, unlike the hard and tense frame of Castiel. 

“Something like that.” Ed conceded. “Souls are essentially energy. When a human dies, that soul goes up or down or lingers, becomes a ghost. Unless it's eaten. I can't kill a person and absorb their energy; I'd have to activate their energy while they were alive and draw it out. The only problem there is that the soul isn't something that can be manipulated unless it's out of its form, but then I couldn't hold it. Philosopher's Stones are created when the soul and other components are activated simultaneously in an alchemic circle. The soul is trapped as the body and other components form a crystalline structure, encasing it and multiplying its power. When souls are used to create philosopher's stones, I consume the energy while the essence of the person vanishes into wherever. Left in the stone or a homunculus' stomach, they become part of the Gate.”

“Semantics.” Dean narrowed his eyes at Ed and then at the building that Al set on fire with a clap. “What stops you from becoming like them? From becoming like this Gate? From making those stones in the first place?”

“Him.” Ed jerked his chin at Al who was monitoring their fire. “Because if I ever took one step off the right path, Al would kick my ass.”

If there was one thing that Dean seemed to get instinctively, it was family. Battlelines drawn, Dean sighed and clapped Ed on the shoulder. 

“I will probably regret leaving this. But if you ever become one of those things and I end up on your ass, I'll kill you no hesitation. Get me?” 

“I do and I'll fucking let you.” Ed narrowed his eyes and jerked his head towards Castiel. “Just get an oath from your angel not to murder us in our sleep.” 

“You are of no consequence to Heaven.” Castiel said with narrowed eyes and an irate attitude. Probably had to do with the blasphemy from earlier.

“No more so than you.” Ed smirked suddenly as if realizing something. “We'll see you around.”

“I'll try to keep in touch.” Al rejoined them, ruffling through his pockets. He took a pen out and wrote a number across Sam's hand. “That's my cell number. If you run into any other stuff like this, just call and Brother and I will take care of it.”

“Al! Get your ass in gear!” Ed was across the lot, the armor at his side. 

“Coming!” Al nodded to Dean and Cas, ignoring their unhappiness with a cheerful smile. “We should do this again sometime, Sam!”

“Later!” He waved back, watching his new friend run off after his brother. Unbelievable. It was like the universe really liked to play around with the Winchester model of family. Negligent fathers, dead mothers, and two brothers against the world. Sam frankly wouldn't be all that surprised to learn that the same configuration existed in every universe and reality.

He felt it was safe to conclude that the Universe was a dick.

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble - no planned sequel.


End file.
